if there's a reason (i'm still alive)
by inkedinserendipity
Summary: A look at Gramma Tala and her relationship with the Heart, the Ocean, and the daughter of the village Chief.


The first time Tala laid eyes on the Heart of Te Fiti, her old aching bones had weathered eighty summers, each just as dry as the last. As she hobbled down a small path toward the shore, she fancied that she could still feel several decades' worth of the sun's arid heat pressing down on her skin, crinkling it like a dried fern.

But as her son's voice faded into the trees and Tala stooped painfully toward the beach, as her hand closed around that innocuous small stone, life flooded back into her weary bones. It was as if the Heart swelled within her, smoothing her skin with the power of the waves in the ocean.

In that one touch, the Heart made her young again.

* * *

No longer did Tala bleed. No longer did she truly need for breath, nor feel the pain of hunger. One week, during her eighty-fifth winter, she ate nothing, passing their increasingly-scarce food supply on to her beloved granddaughter.

When the crops began to bloom once more, when Tala allowed herself taro again, her little Moana giggled happily in her lap.

"Shhh," Tala said playfully, enjoying the taste of the root across her tongue. She broke the taro root in half, twisting it apart beneath her fingers, and though the root's rough skin scraped painfully against her nails she felt nothing. She gave one half to her granddaughter just to see the little one's face light up in joy. "Don't tell your dad, okay?"

"Don't tell!" chirped the Chief's young daughter.

* * *

It was not long before Moana, still so small and wriggly and curious, forgot.

* * *

Every morning, Tala dances with the waves. It is one of her dearest and most hated refuges.

For the water accepts her as she is, calls to her with the same lilting melody that Tala knows her son once heard, that Tala knows her granddaughter hears still. It soothes her, wrapping around her ankles like an old friend. It chants in an ancient tongue, that undying melody, whispering to her in a soft voice that feels like the touch of a mother, like the smile of a friend. It is gleaming and bright with the sun bouncing off the waves and warming her face.

Yet the water is lost to her. For despite the joy it brings to her in the mornings, there are some evenings when she dreams - for she does not need sleep, not the way that her son and her granddaughter do - there are some evenings when she dreams of the sea.

On those nights where she wakes in her _fale_ , shaking again from a dream of the Voyage, those broad arching skies and the warm beating sun and the soft caress of the wind and the high piercing cries of the circling birds, she finds herself down by the shore.

And on those nights, she does not dance. She sits on the sand, crumpled on herself in a position that should by all rights make her joints ache, and longs for a past that could not have been.

* * *

When Tala looks at Moana, she sees the ocean.

Since her precious granddaughter first blinked open her eyes, Tala has seen the ocean in her. Truthfully, Tala had not planned to blurt the name _Moana_ to her son and his wife, but out the name came, and as soon as she spoke it, it settled on her tongue like it was _right_. Like it should have been, like it was preordained. Like it was part of something greater than any of them.

And so the ocean Moana became.

The ocean is calm and unyielding, joyous and loving, determined and fierce, capricious and mischievous. When Moana jokes, Tala sees the mischief of the trickling tides. When she argues, Tala sees the power of the arcing waves. And when Moana smiles, Tala sees the glimmer of the sea at sunset, beautiful and shining and unafraid.

The sea calls to Moana, and she it. However her son tries, however her island tries, they cannot keep Moana from the sea. Nor can they cannot keep the sea from Moana. Her granddaughter, like the ocean, is unwavering, and she will not give up until she unites with her namesake.

When Tala looks at Moana, dancing calmly in front of the sea - her eyes closed, a faint smile across her face, the burnished golds of the ocean playing off her hair - Tala sees hope.

For the first time, Tala sees hope.

* * *

Moana takes a boat out to sea. She crashes. She retreats to the shore, disillusioned and hurting, and Tala greets her there.

 _Voyagers_ , she thinks when she looks at Moana, the sea behind her. _We were voyagers once, and voyagers we shall be again._

But that all sounds very stoic and prophetic and serious, and that's not who Tala is. So she lets her ancestors tell it themselves, and to the Cavern of the Ancestors Tala guides her granddaughter.

 _Voyagers_ , her ocean, her Moana, beloved and joyous, calls. _We were voyagers._

Tala shows Moana the ocean. She shows Moana the rot, then the hook, then - finally - the Heart of Te Fiti.

Tala sets the Heart in her granddaughters' hands.

The change is instantaneous and painful, draining in a way that Tala has not felt in a decade. It seeps into her bones and nearly tears her from Moana, but Tala looks at Moana and sees that fierce determination with which they dance every sunrise, and pushes the feeling away.

Moana leaves, the Heart in one hand and hope in the other.

Tala settles herself onto a rock and lets her age wash over her. The hunger, the exhaustion, the pain - ten years worth sweep over her in one moment. She should hurt, she should wince, but truthfully - she is too old, now, to feel as much as she should. The Heart of Te Fiti has stolen from her the capacity to feel as her family does, and she will not get it back. Like the ocean the Heart takes, and it takes, and it takes.

Tala struggles to her feet, muscles straining, unused to such exertion, and drags herself toward the center of Motunui.

She makes it halfway toward the _fale tele_ before her cane clatters from her hands and she embraces the earth.

* * *

With Tui she shares her final breath. "She will be fine," she whispers, forehead pressed against his and reassuring her son as best she can before she goes. Tui doesn't understand, not yet - but he will.

But he will.

* * *

The wings of a manta ray, great and wise, arc from her back. Her farewells said, her mission finished, Tala soars freely toward the ocean. For the first time in so long, Tala can feel her new muscles aching and the rasp of the waves against her rubbery skin.

Above her, the ocean rejoices and her granddaughter sings and it is with hope in her breast that Tala leaps toward the sky.

* * *

Her granddaughter finds the demigod. She grabs him by the ear, demands he sail with her to restore the Heart of Te Fiti. He refuses, as the fickle demigod is wont to do; but Moana is the ocean, unyielding and unwavering, and his resolve chips away under her determination and her love.

With the might of the tides and the cleverness of the currents, her granddaughter makes her way to Te Fiti. The demigod leaves. Tala returns. Moana sings, and that fire of hope lights in her breast too, loud and confident, rejoicing in who she is, and Moana dives back into the sea, her namesake and her birthright and her home.

The ocean accepts her with open arms. Tala leaves, and watches as her granddaughter - her brave, compassionate granddaughter - sails to Te Fiti.

Maui returns. Moana restores the Heart of Te Fiti. They say their goodbyes, a _see you later_ that makes ripples through legend.

Moana returns to Motunui.

Finally, Tui understands Tala's last words. Because Moana is brilliant, the sparkling glimmer of sunlight over the waves, a beacon and fire of joy. She becomes their guide, just as she had guided Maui to Te Fiti. Day in and day out, pausing only to dance with the waves, Moana teaches her people to sail.

Then, finally, after ninety long winters, Tala voyages.

* * *

The skies are broad, arching forever over her head. The sun is warm against her wings, the wind skating along her skin, the call of the birds high and joyous above her. The ocean is below her and, skimming atop its waves, her granddaughter leads the Voyage. The Ocean and Moana are hand-in-hand, eager and proud, and with the demigod too at Moana's side Tala sees that they have become something preordained, greater than anything Tala could have known.

Tala flits through the waves now without bitterness. No longer does she long for a past that could never have been. No longer does she want for a life that was not hers.

For after ninety long summers, with her granddaughter leading the way, Tala makes the Voyage her own.


End file.
